The Year in Territorial Control Changes

For the past three years, PolGeoNow has published a "Year in Review" article to summarize all the political geography news that's happened in the past 12 months. The 2014 and 2015 articles included news about changing territorial control in conflict zones, but because this is a major topic of its own, we've chosen to split these events into a separate article for 2016. So read on for a concise summary of last year's rebel control changes...

Syria, Iraq, and the "Islamic State"

The Syrian Civil War
continued to be the biggest armed conflict in the world through 2016,
as well as a prominent example of a country whose territory isn't all
controlled by the recognized government. During the past year,
pro-government forces scored some major victories against the rebels,
recapturing the country's second largest city and gradually increasing
control in areas around the capital.

Elsewhere
in the world, IS struggled to gain territorial footholds in Somalia and
Yemen, but had little to show for it at the end of the year, while Nigeria's IS
affiliate - commonly known as "Boko Haram" - spent 2016 with little to no territorial control, after being decisively driven out of most of its possessions in 2015. And while IS was beginning to accumulate territory in
Afghanistan a year ago, by mid-2016 it lost most of it again to
government offensives and conflicts with the Taliban rebels.

Other Major Conflict Zones

Meanwhile,
all of the countries where IS struggled to hold ground - except for Nigeria, where other rebels' attempts to capture land fizzled out - had bigger territorial control
issues.

Libya saw a major political realignment between its two rival governments, as the internationally unrecognized administration in the west joined a new UN-backed unity government, leaving its rival in the east to lose much of its international support. Control on the ground also changed late in 2016 after a power struggle over independently-guarded oil ports on the country's central coast.

In Afghanistan, the Taliban continued consolidating their
control of rural areas, while briefly overrunning or besieging
three provincialcapitalcities. Around the middle of the year, 20% of Afghanistan was reportedly under Taliban control.

At the same time, Somalia continued to struggle against
Al Shabaab, an affiliate of Al Qaeda, which continued to control a large portion of the country's rural south, and briefly overran some majortowns in 2016.

In Yemen, meanwhile, a Saudi-backed coalition nibbled slowly at the edges of
the territory of the Houthi rebels now in control of the country's
capital, finding more success driving Al Qaeda forces out of several cities and towns along the country's southern coast.

Smaller Territorial Control Changes

The ACLED conflict database
catalogued heavy ongoing territorial struggles in South Sudan, Sudan,
and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a handful of small rebel
seizures or losses in Mali, Myanmar, Thailand, and Mozambique, and
possible incidents of rebels capturing bits of territory in Ethiopia,
Uganda, and Kenya (where Al Shabaab violence sometimes spills over from
neighboring Somalia). Pakistan also reportedly cleared one of its last areas thought to be held by religious hardline rebels near the border with Afghanistan.

PolGeoNow also reported on some small changes to territorial control
in the nearly-frozen conflict between Ukraine and the breakaway Donetsk
People's Republic. Meanwhile, news reports indicated that rebels briefly stormed an Indian military base
in the disputed Kashmir region, while a blossoming insurgency in
Nigeria's Niger Delta region (far away and separate from the war with
"Boko Haram") saw rebels allegedly attempt to capture
a town near the country's largest city.

Late in 2016, Colombia's FARC
rebels began laying down their weapons after a peace deal was reached to
end the country's 50-year civil war. PolGeoNow hasn't been able
to find proof of exclusive FARC control of territory in recent years, but reporting on the deal did make reference to FARC-controlled areas.